And Maybe This Is a Love Story
by radialarch
Summary: "Wait for the day he comes back, and that will be the start of a love story. But this already is one, for the ages, timeless, unending." / Almost-meta!fic, S/J-ish, up through TRF.


**Title:** And Maybe This Is a Love Story  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>References to ASiP, TGG, ASiB, and TRF.****  
><strong>Pairings:<strong>** **Sherlock/John. Ish.****  
><strong>Rating:<strong>** **K******  
><strong>Warnings:<strong>**** **Allusion to the Fall, briefly.******  
><strong>Wordcount:<strong>**** **723**  
><strong><strong><strong>Summary:<strong>**** **Wait for the day he comes back, and that will be the start of a love story. (But this already is one, for the ages, timeless, unending.)

_A/N: Inspired in part by anarmydoctor's The(y) Kiss. (Again, take a wander over to AO3 for that.)  
>Here be much abuse of parentheticals and lack of the fourth wall. <em>

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><p>"I'm not actually gay," says John, exasperated, because he's just so <em>tired<em> of candle-lit dinners. With Sherlock. Where Sherlock stares out the window and John picks at the pasta, before they take off after yet another maybe-criminal.

Well, he's not lying.

He's not actually straight, either, but that doesn't matter. (Oh, but it does matter.)

The point is, he is not in love with his flatmate. (And now the good doctor _is_ lying, though he's usually more self-aware. Come, John, do try to keep up.)

Because Sherlock Holmes is a strange being (_a complicated being_), a frustrating being (_an exhilarating being_), a dangerous being (but really, when has that ever stopped him?), and anyway, wasn't he in love with The Woman?

But we must be careful with this word, "love" – it's misleading in the worst way possible, deceptive for the sake of deception, and a thousand dictionary definitions are inadequate to tame it.

Sherlock Holmes was a) fascinated with; b) bewildered by; c) amused at The Woman, and, let's face it, that's the most emotion any woman has ever drawn (will ever draw) out of this detective. Count that a victory, Irene Adler, and carve another notch on your whip-handle.

But _love_, a-dangerous-chemical-defect-found-on-the-losing-side – well, that's a different story.

Love is what ties together the delicate, deadly ball of favours that the Holmes brothers pass back and forth in a swift (_too swift_) rally.

Love is why Mrs Hudson will never leave Baker Street and Sherlock knows the insides of her fridge better than his own. (Though, to be fair, no one knows _exactly_ the contents of the refrigerator of 221B – there is an entire evolving universe inside it, and it would be rude to encroach upon their story.)

Love is why DI Lestrade has sat by a hospital bed through three different long, panicky nights, tipped cool water at numb lips and held a shaking, aristocratic hand, IV drip notwithstanding. (And they never speak of it afterwards, but Sherlock knows. And is grateful.)

So let us not say that Sherlock Holmes is incapable of love, but that he and The Woman are incapable of loving each other. Because at the end of the day, both Sherlock and Irene play to _win_.

"And it's all fine," an army doctor protests; but that doesn't mean Sherlock is _in love_. With him. And it certainly doesn't mean that John returns the sentiment (if it exists – and of course it doesn't).

Oh, but only denial carries that taste of pure certainty. The man doth protest too much, we think.

"We're not a couple," says John Watson, and he is wrong (_so wrong_).

The evidence:

- "_John_," breathed (whispered) in a disbelieving (_betrayed_) voice. (And the pain spikes up on an EKG of that reliably-informed-non-heart of Sherlock's.)

- "_Sherlock_," cried (screamed) in an urgent (_desperate_) voice. (_Oh god no_.)

And they don't hold hands (though they _could_ hold hands) (except when they do), and they don't share kisses (though they don't _need_ the declaration of kisses) (blood is far more intimate than that, and they're all-too-willing to spill red for each other), but they do live one life (and oh, what a life it is).

"I have a girlfriend," argues John (although what he has, in reality, is an anti-Sherlock; a defense mechanism; a colleague without a dog, or a not-colleague with a dog), and Sherlock is married to his work, besides.

Yes, and yes, and an understanding smile, because Three-Continents Watson, the stealer and breaker of countless hearts, still can't recognise love without its gaudy trappings.

It's quite simple, actually: a measurement in heartbeats, of lives saved, and owed, and borrowed, and cherished.

Do you see now?

(A pity Sally never warned John against a broken heart; but then, he was lost from the beginning, that first smile, "_Fantastic_".)

All the things you wanted to say, John Watson, but didn't – don't say them now (or in a few days, or a year), and don't say them here (or at a funeral, or to a starkly simple gravestone), but keep them and remember them, hold them close like the talismans they are, shelter them so their flickering warmth may not fade—

And wait for the day he comes back, and that will be the start of a love story.

(But this already is one, for the ages, timeless, unending.)

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><p><em>Reviews are food for writers.<em>


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